Fairy Tales
by JaneGray
Summary: Good guys don't always get a happy ending. Dante X Lady.


**Fairy Tales**

"It was a dark and stormy night…", Dante said dramatically, with a smirk on his face and a bottle of Jack Daniel's in his hand.

Outside, heavy rain and wind raged furiously and loud thunders echoed one after another. While some would have called it "hellish" weather, Dante knew that even demons had standards, so he had decided to take the night off for once.

He finished the contents of the bottle in one gulp, then tossed it onto a pile of empty bottles laying on his desk. Good thing his demonic metabolism allowed him to imbibe enormous amounts of alcohol with no ill effects, or he'd probably be dead in a pool of his own blood-stained vomit now. Even so, not all of that alcohol had gone down his throat… He glanced at the young woman snoring lightly on the sofa, oblivious to the bluster of the storm.

Lady knew better than to try and outdrink him, but watching him empty so many bottles had encouraged her to drink much more than any reasonable human would. At his suggestion that she had had enough, miss Pissypants had taken it as a dare to drink even more, until it was a miracle she hadn't fallen off the chair.

Taking her to her place was out of the question: even if he had been willing to get cold and wet and probably struck by a lightning just to get her into her bed, driving a motorbike while holding on to an intoxicated trigger-happy woman in the midst of a giantass storm was wayyyy too much trouble. So he had simply carried her to the sofa and covered her with his trenchcoat, and she had promptly fallen fast asleep. She was definitely going to wake up with a hell of a hangover, but on the bright side, she hadn't vomited on his trenchcoat. Yet.

He yawned and stretched. Sleep was so tempting… He was warm and tired and bored, and he couldn't remember the last time he had actually slept at night.

But Lady could feel sick at anytime, what if she needed help? He had to stay awake to watch her. Even if it was a pain in the ass _and_ it was totally her fault she had got wasted. Sure, he had offered her the drinks, but _she_ had decided to help herself to the whole bottle, even after he had told her to stop. She had also invited herself for the night in the first place.

The weather had been overcast all day, and when she had come that evening to pester him into taking an incredibly crappy job, she had had the gall to be surprised that it had started raining. God forbid she get her hair and clothes wet, so she had decided to stay "for ten more minutes, just enough for the rain to stop". Funny how ten minutes had become over four hours counting.

Lady shifted and moaned, looking very uncomfortable, but didn't wake. She murmured in her sleep, asking for water.

Dante was quickly by her side with a glass of fresh water in his hand. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and carefully lifted her up to help her drink, and she seemed to relax again. And she leaned her head against his chest and _nuzzled_. And he became suddenly _very aware_ of her warm body pressed against his.

It was extremely awkward. He wasn't doing anything wrong, on the contrary, he was taking care of her, she should have thanked him, he wasn't doing anything wrong. But it _looked _like he was cuddling her, and he just _knew_ that she would shoot him in the crotch if she woke up like this.

He looked at her face - was she going to wake up? It didn't seem so. Her eyes stayed closed, her dark eyelashes rested still against her fair skin and flushed cheeks. Her scar, far from hardening her features, exalted them and offered a nice contrast that made the unmarked skin look even softer, so that a supposed flaw effectively added to her charm. The beautiful picture was completed by her pink, full lips, slightly parted as she breathed evenly, and framed by her lustrous black hair.

Dante's own breathing had quickened considerably, but he was oblivious to it, he hadn't even realized that he had stopped just supporting her and was actually holding her tightly.

When she had drunk the water a bit of it had spilled out, forming a tiny rivulet that traveled from her wet mouth downwards. As if hypnotized, Dante's eyes followed its path, down her slender neck, down her chest, raising and falling with each soft breath, into the cleft between her breasts.

For an instant, he was possessed by the urge to feel her, taste her, relish her…! But it immediately crashed against his sense of right and wrong, and a months-old memory of rejection in the library of Temen-ni-gru. Lady didn't want to kiss him, what _the hell_ was he doing taking advantage of her while she was drunk and asleep!? What was he thinking!?

He groaned. Nothing, he wasn't thinking at all. Not with the head on his neck, anyway.

Feeling pathetic, he laid Lady back on the sofa, this time pulling the trenchcoat up to her chin, and sat on the floor with his back to her.

He didn't understand, it made no sense. He always felt extremely confident with women, always in control. He was well aware of his extraordinarily good looks and the lustful gazes women (and some men) gave him, and he greatly enjoyed the attention and was more than happy to oblige. So _why_ did he feel and act like a virgin kid whenever Lady was involved in any kind of remotely sexual situation?

He sighed. It was complicated. Sex was easy, and he was very, very good at it. But romance was a bitch.

Why couldn't it be as simple as in fairy tales? Sleeping Beauty was woken with a kiss and instantly fell in love with the Prince, instead of being freaked out that a stranger had entered her bedroom and got touchy-feely with her while she slept. In real life, that's sexual harassment; in fairy tales, it's True Love.

Moreover, Sleeping Beauty stayed young for 100 years. Ok yeah, she didn't exactly spend that time enjoying herself, she was practically comatose, but _still_, she was alive. Lady couldn't possibly live that long, she would age and die like the human she was. He didn't know how long a half-demon could live, but he was pretty sure he would outlive her by far.

But then again, maybe not. After all, his human mother had outlived his demonic father, even if only by a few years. Even if she had died so young.

Yet another instance of "reality sucks": the Beauty and the Beast of the fairy tale fell in love and lived happily ever after, they weren't killed by the Beast's enemies and they didn't leave two orphan children to grow up all alone in the street, or wherever it was that Vergil grew up in.

Vergil… selling out like that, betraying everything their parents had stood for, choosing to stay in Hell, and for what? Out of scorn for their human half? What would their mother have said? Had Vergil despised their mother too, had Vergil been ashamed of her? His own twin brother… How had that gone so horribly wrong? If only one could go back in time, if only the past could be changed, if only they could be a family again…

He snorted. God, had he managed to get drunk even with his metabolism? Enough with the emo crap.

His parents were dead, but their enemies hadn't won, and they never would for as long as he lived. Sparda and Eva fought on through their son.

His brother was gone. Maybe Vergil was dead, maybe not. Maybe one day they would meet again. If that day ever came, he was determined to kick some sense into the prat and drag him back to the Human World, tied and gagged if he had to, to make him apologize to the picture of their mother.

Things with Lady hadn't gone the way he wished, but even though she knew exactly what he was, she had come to accept him as if he were a human. He finally had somebody he could be honest with, somebody who really understood his loss and his mission because they reflected her own. He may outlive her by centuries or she might bury him in a few years, but they were both alive now, so… whatever will be, will be.

He leaned his back against the sofa and relaxed, resting but careful not to fall asleep. Minutes passed by and became hours, the sun rose and birds chipped merrily as if to greet the new day. Lady emitted a long, low, wounded animal-ish whimper, and finally opened her eyes.

"…Dante? That you? I'm dying. Shoot me now, make it quick!"

"Aww, don't be like that! Can't the big bad demon slayer take an itty-bitty hangover?"

"Screw you. Painkillers or bullets, now."

"Fine, fine. The pharmacy should be about to open by now, I'll go get you something." He smirked, then theatrically kneeled in front of her, took her hand into his and brushed his lips against her fingers, the gentlest kiss imaginable. "Wait for me, princess, your knight in shining red leather will be right back!"

Lady groaned and put her face in her hands as he exited the office, careful to close the door gently for once, but she felt a bit relieved in spite of his lame jokes. He would soon be back with the medicine, and he would stand by her side until she felt better. She knew she could always count on him to be there for her.

Whatever will be, will be.


End file.
